Friday, July 6, 2012

The Cantons in Spaaaace

I have been trying to resist the space
opera bug for months now—Jeff Rients' Traveller Leviathan campaign
reports just made matters much worse.

Basta. I surrender.

Starting today at 8:30 I will be
running an on-again, off-again Classic Traveller mini-campaign on
Google Plus.

The mini-campaign takes place on the
outer edge of the Cantonment, a distant-future confederation of 31
worlds. The Cantonment has mysteriously just emerged from the
confines of a pocket universe it was shoved into (just as
mysteriously) five centuries ago to find it has been shoved to
another spiral arm of the galaxy.

All around it is the yawning darkness
of unexplored space.

The coreworlds of the Cantonment are in
sad shape for confronting this development. An inward malaise and
weariness has set in the long years of splendid isolation. Endless
rounds of flower wars, ponzi schemes, financial collapses, feuds,
peccadillos, insurrections, and the like have wracked the confederacy
leaving its central government weak and inert.

But some are stepping forward to face
outwardly into the stars. Grasping corporations, ambitious planetary
radas (councils), and now even spunky little “bolos” (small,
cooperatively-owned outfits leftover from the Autonome Upheaval) are
outfitting their own ships.

You are one such bolo. Pooling your
savings and pensions from your years in service you have purchased a
200-ton Stormchild-class Space Xebec (pictured above and statted
below). The ship only crews six and your bolo is larger, so expect
some rotation (cue the in-game excuse for rotating player
composition). You start on the edge of known space at a squalid,
little planet called Outpost Nine (0801 Outpost Nine C446353-9
Non-Industrial).

A small detail, you still owe payments
on the ship. Every six months for the next 20 years you must pay
300,000 cr—or you are going to make the repo list pretty damn
quick. And the life of a space repo man is always intense.

House Rules

1. We will be using the three LBBs and
the Citizens of the Imperium for character generation. Any number of
terms are acceptable.

2. Failure to meet a survival roll in
chargen gives you the choice between “cake” (-1 to one of the
first three stats and forced discharge from service with no
skills/benefits for that term, add two years to your age) or “death”.

3. Any melee weapon can be bought in a
suped-up version that cuts all to hit modifiers against armor in half
(rounding down). Such weapons cost three times the normal price. Feel
free to add “vibro”, “chain”, “power”, or what to the
name of it to sex it on up.

"TRS Model/Ibis or equivalent. 8-bit entertainment consoles with cassette drives. Magnetic tape and punchcards sold separately." Love it. Was watching Outland the other day, and I'm always amused at how quickly (some) future technology is outdated. Okay, so we've not got flying cars, or even workable short-range space travel. But did you see the 'high-tech' video golf game the guy was playing? Psh!